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On Mathematical Statistics and its Application to Political Economy and Insurance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

Theodor Wittstein
Theodor Wittstein*
Affiliation:
Hanover Life Insurance Company
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Extract

It is well known that the number of the physical sciences is continually increasing, by a process of development from within. We constantly see divisions and branches of existing sciences cultivated and developed until they acquire a separate existence as new and independent sciences. For it has long been impossible for a single person to master the whole, or even a considerable part of these sciences, and the necessity for a division of labour is continually becoming more and more felt here, as elsewhere. It is, however, comparatively seldom that the number of the sciences is increased by the addition to them of an entirely new one, and therefore the case of which I am about to speak appears to deserve our particular attention. For I shall presently prove that a department of science, which has not hitherto belonged to the physical sciences, is now being so developed and perfected, that in a very short time it will claim admission into the number on equal terms with the others. This department of science is Statistics. The science of Statistics in its present form has now existed a full century. It owed its birth, as well as its name, to Achenwall of Göttingen, about the middle of the last century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , October 1872 , pp. 178 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1873

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References

page 180 note * Say gives one of many instances in Ms Traité d'économie politique: “The French Minister of the Interior, in his report for 1813, a time of calamity, when commerce was destroyed and the national resources of every kind were rapidly diminishing, boasts of having demonstrated by means of figures that France was in a condition of prosperity greater than it had ever before enjoyed.”

page 182 note * See my Essay, Zur Bevolkemngs—Statistik, in the Zeitschrift des Königlich preussischen statistischen Bureau, 3rd year. Part I.

page 182 note † See, especially, Fischer's “Grundzüge des auf die menschliche Sterblichkeit gegründeten Versiehervngswesens,” Oppenheim, 1860.

page 184 note * It may he remarked, in passing, that the following investigations admit of being applied to many other subjects besides mortality. Thus, for instance, we might have said, “Let p he the probability that an unmarried person of the age x will still be unmarried at the end of a year;” or “Let p be the probability that a building of class x will not be burnt down at the end of a year,” and so on; the nature of the particular subject indicating what modifications must be introduced in applying our investigations to such cases as these. We will not pursue this subject further on the present occasion.

page 187 note * See Gauss's Theoria combinations observationum. The coefficient ·6745 is more exactly ·6744897, and its five-figure logarithm is 1·82898.